FIVE Athens — Restaurant in Athens-Clarke County Unified Government

Let me preface this by saying that our food was really delicious and I've come to five bar before and had pretty good experiences. However this last time I went to five bar was on a Saturday afternoon and I was with a group of 5 people for my friend's 21st brunch celebration.

We were seated by the host (who ended up being the manager after a later discovery) and after about 10 minutes had passed by and no waiter or waitress had come to speak with us. So, someone from my party went up the host stand to complain that we hadn't been waited on and it took another 5 minutes after my friend returned from complaining that a waiter finally came to bring us water. Because of the delay in getting to our table in any sort of timely manner, when our waiter came out he brought us two complementary avocado toasts, which was a nice gesture but not what we wanted (which was to just be served and have an enjoyable experience.)

We then ordered drinks from the waiter, which were a soda, a pitcher of mimosas and a coffee. Another 10 minutes passed and we still hadn't been given drinks even though our waiter had come out two other times to check on his other table. We asked him to check on our drinks and he proceeded to blame the bartender for the delay. He finally brought the drinks out after a few more minutes had passed. At this point we had been seated for more than 30 minutes and all while this is happening, there were 5 other tables and, from what I could see, 3 other waiter/waitresses, so it's not like it was exceedingly busy and difficult to rush around with everyone's orders.

When we had ordered our dishes at the same time as our drinks, the birthday girl and another person in our party had each ordered and requested breakfast burritos with no bacon and sausage inside because they're both vegetarians. The birthday girl took one bite when we got our food and immediately bit into sausage and when we opened the burrito, there was meat everywhere in it. So the waiter took it back and they remade her burrito.

We asked to speak to the manager and explained everything that had happened during the meal and he was apologetic, but he was very defensive about everything that we brought up to him. He ended up comping the drinks but that didn't even apply toward the girl who's 21st we were celebrating so even though they messed up her meal and she had to eat after we had all been given our food 20 minutes before her. The whole experience was extremely disappointing and I would never recommend for someone to go here just...

Just finished brunch at five bar, and regret going there. We had our usual bloody Mary and mimosa, which usually makes any food delicious, but our food was subpar and they’ve gone up on the prices.

My partner’s burger was dry, and my breakfast burrito was so dry and blah, that I asked for sour cream and salsa to try to make it better. They didn’t have sour cream but brought me a small cup of salsa & queso. It didn’t help and I didn’t eat the burrito.

When the waiter asked if the extra salsa helped, and I told him no that the burrito was extremely dry and bland, he commented that he had “gotten a lot of mixed reviews about the burrito today”. But he did not offer to take it off of our bill or to bring me something different. If you know that you’ve had a lot of problems with a food item today, and you don’t offer to make it better, that says a lot about your restaurant!

Additionally, I ordered a cup of decaf coffee to go with our meal and they were out. He said they only make one pot of decaf a day. He did not offer to make me more decaf until I inquired about why they only make one pot. Making coffee is the easiest thing in the universe… To not provide that for a customer when it takes three minutes to make a new pot of coffee is just bizarre.

I feel regretful we just spent $76 for brunch for two to feel sick from the food and to not have enjoyed our meals. This used to be one of our favorite brunch places pre-pandemic, and it has gone down hill a lot. We are extremely disappointed.

Perhaps most disappointing is the fact that our waiter knew that we were not pleased with the dry eggs in the burrito and the dry burger and he did nothing to try to make it better. A manager didn’t come over and talk to us, no one tried to remake our food or offered to do anything to make it better. Our waiter was in full knowledge of everything that we were experiencing and thinking, and he did nothing to try to make it right. We will not be back.

I wouldn’t waste your money at this establishment. What once was our favorite brunch place is now...

Five bar used to be one of myself, family and friends favorite spots. The last few times we've been have been disappointing- the last was the worst Sat Oct 23rd in particular. From the moment we walked in for Brunch every staff member we encountered had quite an attitude and clearly did not want to be there. The hostess to start was rude but we brushed that off. The server was no better. It took 2 hours or more from when we ordered our food to receive it and the place was maybe 1/2 full or less- half of our guests food was already cold from sitting out. The server was not attentive at all, wasn't even bringing waters, coffee, nothing. She seemed to be avoiding our table as much as possible even for us to order we had to ask 3 times. When I ordered I also said my husband and I would be on the same check and she acknowledged that. We waited forever for our check to come out and because our party had more than 5 people she relayed the check was not able to be split- it had to be split evenly amongst every person so I got to pay $28 for a basic piece of avocado toast. Had she mentioned this before when I specifically asked when ordering it would have been no problem- I wouldn't have ordered. To top it off upon leaving, we went to grab a toothpick from the front bar set up and the bartender responded with a "you could have at least asked for me to get it for you". We thought she was being funny and sarcastic at first but she was dead serious. A toothpick? On the bar top? Isn't it more sanitary for the person "picking" it out to be the one to use it?? Instead of it getting passed by someone else's hands when its going in your mouth? All in all, we will not be returning to Five Bar for a long while. I worked in the service industry for years. I can deal with okay food, long waits as I'm sure like every restaurant they are understaffed, but attitudes from every staff member encountered will not get...